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Francis Thompson
English |other_names = |known_for = |education = |employer = |occupation = |home_town = |title = |salary = |networth = |height = |weight = |term = |predecessor = |successor = |party = |boards = |religion = |spouse = |partner = |children = |parents = |relatives = |signature = |website = |footnotes = }} Francis Thompson (16 December 1859 – 13 November 1907) was an English poet and ascetic. Life Thompson was born at 7 Winckley Street, Preston. His father, Charles Thompson (1824–1896), a native of Oakham, Rutland, practised homoeopathy at Preston and Ashton-under-Lyne, and married Mary (Morton). Francis's uncles, Edward Healy Thompson (born 1813) and John Costall Thompson, were both authors. Edward, who was professor of English literature at the catholic university in Dublin (1853–4) and sub-edited the Dublin Review (1862–4), wrote devotional works, which were widely circulated; John published a volume of poems, The Vision of Liberty, which won the approval of Sir Henry Taylor and of Gladstone. Like these uncles, Francis's father and mother were converts to the Roman catholic church. Francis was their 2nd child, but the elder son died in infancy. Three sisters were born later.Meynell, 502. Francis, who was brought up in the catholic faith, was sent in 1870 to Ushaw College, there to receive a fair classical education and to be prepared, if he and his mentors saw fit, for the priesthood. A frail and timid child of studious tastes, Thompson nurtured at Ushaw his life-long allegiance to the doctrines and liturgy of the church. At 17 he left to study medicine by his father's wish at Owens College, Manchester. Medical study was repugnant to him, and after 6 years' trial, in the course of which he failed 3 times in examination for a degree, he attempted in a helpless fashion some humble means of livelihood. He made no plea in favour of a literary career, but he had read with ardent sympathy the works of Æschylus and Blake, while the gift from his mother of De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium Eater gave his thought a perilous direction. His father's reproaches at his failure to earn a livelihood led him suddenly in November 1885 to seek his fortune in London. There he filled for a time some small posts, among them that of a publisher's "collector." But, tormented by neuralgia and other ills, he fell a prey to opium, and soon passed through every phase of destitution, sleeping in the open, and seeking a few pence by selling matches or newspapers. During this period a Leicester Square bootmaker, accosting him in the street, gave him for a time light employment in his shop, and — what proved a more enduring gift — old account books for scribbling paper: Sustained through his sufferings by opium, he developed poetical powers, and at the end of 2 years of outcast life he copied out on ragged scraps of paper in the spring of 1888 2 poems, "The Passion of Mary" and "Dream-Tryst," and a prose essay, "Paganism Old and New." These compositions he sent, giving Charing Cross Post Office as his address, to Merry England, where the work of his uncle, Edward Healy Thompson, had already appeared. They were accepted by the editor, Wilfrid Meynell, and were duly published in the numbers for April, May, and June respectively. Browning read them shortly before his death, and pronounced their author to be a poet capable of achieving whatever his ambition might suggest. At the time opium eating and privation had ruined Thompson's health. Having been traced with difficulty, he was induced to enter a hospital, and afterwards to recuperate at Storrington, Sussex. His recovery largely depended on the breaking of the opium habit. During this painful process his literary sense gathered fresh strength, and he wrote the "Ode to the Setting Sun" and other verse and the "Essay on Shelley." In 1893 he published his first volume of Poems, chiefly written at Storrington. Coventry Patmore was among the earliest and most enthusiastic admirers of the book. The chief poem, "The Hound of Heaven," found wide popularity despite its somewhat recondite theme, which treated in the spirit of the strictest catholic dogma of conflict between human and divine love (cf. Burne-Jones's Life, ii. 240). Of the first section of the poems called "Love in Dian's Lap" Patmore wrote that these were 'poems of of which Laura might have been proud" (Fortnightly Review, lxi.).Meynell, 503. There followed in 1895 Sister Songs (new edition 1908), dedicated to Monica and Madeline Meynell, children of his friend and protector. There he described with subtlety and ingenuous calmness the days of his outcast experience, but the profuse imagery and visionary obscurity of his style rendered a cool reception for the moment inevitable. From 1893 till 1897 Thompson lived, with short intervals, near the Franciscan monastery in Pantasaph, North Wales. There he wrote nearly all the New Poems, which he published in 1897, and dedicated to Patmore, whose death spoilt the pleasures of publication. The book shows the powerful influence of older mystical poets, but the "Mistress of Vision," of which he himself said that it contained as much science as mysticism, takes with the "Anthem of Earth" a place in the forefront of English verse. In prose Thompson also gave proof of notable power. To the Academy, under C.L. Hind's editorship, and, during the last years of his life, to the Athenæum, he contributed a large body of literary criticism. In 1905 he issued Health and Holiness: A study of the relations between Brother Ass the body and his rider the soul (with a preface by Father George Tyrrell). There were published posthumously the Life of St. Ignatius Loyola (1909), The Life of John Baptist de la Galle (1911), and the Essay on Shelley (1909), with a preface by Mr. George Wyndham, who pronounced it "the most important contribution to pure letters written in English during the last twenty years." Despite his ascetic temper and his mystical prepossessions, Thompson found recreation in watching cricket matches, and wrote odds and ends of verse in honour of the game, including famous cricket poem, the nostalgic ''At Lord's''. During his last months he lodged in London and also paid a visit to an admirer, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, at Newbuildings Place near Horsham. There Neville Lytton painted his portrait. In the summer of 1907 he was prevailed upon to enter the Hospital of St. Elizabeth and St. John, St. John's Wood, where he died from consumption on 13 Nov. 1907, fortified by the rites of the catholic church. He was buried in the catholic cemetery, Kensal Green, where his tomb is inscribed with his own words: "Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven." Writing An ardent Roman Catholic, much of Thompson's verse reminded the critics of Crashaw, but the beauty and splendid though often strange inventiveness of his diction were immediately recognized as giving him a place by himself among contemporary poets, recalling Keats and Shelley rather than any of his own day. Among his work there is a certain amount which can justly be called eccentric or unusual, especially in his usage of poetically compounded neologisms; but nothing can be purer or more simply beautiful than "The Daisy," nothing more intimate and reverent than his poems about children, or more magnificent than "The Hound of Heaven." For glory of inspiration and natural magnificence of utterance he is unique among the poets of his time.Hugh Chisholm, Thompson, Francis, Encyclopædia Britannica 1911, Volume 26. Wikisource, Web, Mar. 6, 2017. Critical introduction by Thomas Humphry Ward Francis Thompson came very near to being a great, a very great, poet; he would pretty certainly have been one had he not clouded his brain and shortened his life. Never did plausible writing do greater harm than was done to this rare mind by those pages in which De Quincey glorifies opium, saying that whereas “wine robs a man of his self-possession, opium sustains and reinforces it ... Opium communicates serenity and equipoise to all the faculties, active or passive.... The opium-eater feels that the diviner part of his nature is paramount—that is, the moral affections are in a state of cloudless serenity, and high over all the great light of the majestic intellect.” Young Thompson believed all this, with the result that we know. But when, under the joint influence of religion and of more than parental care, he was able to write, his best work reached a standard attained by very few, whether of his own time or earlier. Burne-Jones, if we may refer to an often-quoted passage, declared in 1893 that “since Gabriel’s 'Blessed Damozel', no mystical words had so touched him as 'The Hound of Heaven';” and judgments not less enthusiastic were passed by Coventry Patmore, Wilfrid Blunt, and — naturally enough — by Thompson’s protectors, the Meynells. About the same time he wrote, and dedicated to the young daughters of his friends, a volume of Sister Songs; we quote from it some lines which both illustrate the grateful affection which he felt to the family and give a pathetic picture of the misery from which they had delivered him. In the interval between 1893 and the publication of New Poems (1897), his genius, we will not say ripened, but deepened; witness our third extract, which both in its grasp of the central idea and in its quick succession of vivid images comes very near to the great passages in Shakespeare. But there is another side. Thompson either could not or would not realize the beauty of simplicity. He became, to a greater and greater degree, consciously and wilfully abstruse, and many of his later verses are positively unintelligible, while he grew more and more fond of néologismes, new words, old words with new terminations, and, to use a much-ridiculed phrase of his own, "the illuminous and volute redundance" of sounds. In fact, such is his inequality that Mrs. Meynell, the one "authorized" exponent, has found it desirable to publish a volume of Selections, though the aggregate of his poems is so small. Still, it is well to remember that one success in poetry outweighs many failures; and two of the three poems from which we quote are successes that no survey of modern English verse can afford to overlook.from Thomas Humphry Ward, "Critical Introduction: Francis Thompson (1859–1907)," The English Poets: Selections with critical introductions (edited by Thomas Humphry Ward). New York & London: Macmillan, 1880-1918. Web, Mar. 30, 2016. Recognition His poem "The Poppy" was included in the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900."The Poppy". Arthur Quiller-Couch, editor, Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900 (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1919). Bartleby.com, Web, May 9, 2012. Among Thompson's devotees was the young J.R.R. Tolkien, who purchased a volume of Thompson's works in 1913-1914, and later said that it was an important influence on his own writing.J.R.R. Tolkien, The Book of Lost Tales, Part One, p. 29n. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1984. In popular culture A phrase in his poem The Kingdom of God is the source of the title of Han Suyin's novel and the eponymous movie, Love is a Many-Splendored Thing. "The Hound of Heaven" is the source of the phrase, "with all deliberate speed," used by the Supreme Court of the United States in Brown v. Board of Education II, the remedy phase of the decision on school desegregation.Jim Chen, [http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=778884 Poetic Justice], 29 Cardozo Law Review (2007) In addition, The American novelist Madeleine L'Engle used a line from Thompson's poem "The Mistress of Vision" as the title of her last Vicki Austin novel, Troubling a Star. Publications Poetry *''Poems. London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane / Boston: Copeland & Day, 1893; **revised 9th edition, ''Poems. London: Burns & Oates, 1908; New York: John Lane, 1908. * Sister-Songs: an offering to two sisters. London: John Lane / Boston: Copeland & Day, 1895. * New Poems. Westminster: Constable, 1897; Boston: Copeland & Day, 1897; London: Burns & Oates, 1907. *''Victorian Ode: For Jubilee Day, 1897. London: privately published at Westminster Press, 1897. *To the English Martyrs. London: Burns & Oates, 1906? * ''Selected Poems. London: Methuen / Burns & Oates, 1907; New York: John Lane, 1907. *''Collected Poetry. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1913; *Complete Poetical Works. New York: Modern Library, 1913. *The Hound of Heaven'' (illustrated by Stella Langdale). New York: Dodd, Mead, 1922. *''Francis Thompson''. London: Ernest Benn, 1927. *''Poems of Francis Thompson'' (edited by Terence Leo Connolly). New York: D. Appleton / Century, 1941. *''The Poems of Francis Thompson'' (edited by Brigid M. Boardman). London & New York: Continuum / Boston College, 2001. Non-fiction *''Health & holiness: A study of the relations between Brother Ass, the body, and his Rider, the soul. London: Burns & Oates, 1905; St. Louis, MO: B. Herder, 1905. *Saint Ignatius Loyola. London, Burns & Oates / New York & Chicago Benziger, 1910. *A Renegade Poet, and other essays'' (edited by Edward Joseph Harrington O'Brien). Boston: Ball, 1910; Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1965. * Shelley: An essay. New York: Scribner, 1908; Portland, ME: Mosher, 1912. *''Somewhere Beyond: A year book of Francis Thompson'' (compiled by Mary Carmel Haley). New York: Dutton, 1917. Collected editions * The Works of Francis Thompson. London: Burns, Oates, & Washbourne, 1913; New York: Scribner, 1913. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III (Prose). *''Poems and Essays'' (edited by Wilfrid Meynell). Westminster, MD: Newman Bookshop, 1947; Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969. *''The Man Has Wings: New poems and plays'' Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1957. Letters *''The Letters of Francis Thompson'' (edited by John Evngelist Walsh). New York: Hawthorn Books, 1969. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Francis Thompson, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Mar. 22, 2015. Poems of Francis Thompson #The Kingdom of God See also * List of British poets References * . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 6, 2017. * * *''Il Segugio del Cielo e altre poesie'', cura e traduzione di Maura Del Serra, Pistoia, Editrice C.R.T., 2000, pp. 270. Notes External links ;Poems * "The Poppy" in the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900 *"To My Friend" in Poetry * Selected Poetry of Francis Thompson (1859-1907) (2 poems) at Representative Poetry Online *Thompson in The English Poets: An anthology: "The Hound of Heaven," [http://www.bartleby.com/337/1595.html from Sister Songs], [http://www.bartleby.com/337/1596.html "The End of It" (from New Poems)] *Thompson in A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895: "To a Poet Breaking Silence," "Dream-Tryst," "Daisy" * Francis Thompson (4 poems) at Poets' Corner *Thompson in the Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse: "The Hound of Heaven," from "The Mistress of Vision", "Orient Ode," "Assumpta Mariam," "The Veteran of Heaven," "Desiderium Indesideratum," "The Kingdom of God". * Francis Thompson at PoemHunter (86 poems) *Francis Thompson at Poetry Nook (184 poems) ;Books * ;About *Francis Thompson in the Encyclopædia Britannica * A profile by Katharine Tynan in The Fortnightly Review Series. * Francis Thompson in the Catholic Encyclopedia. * [http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2000/may2000p12_57.html Francis Thompson]. * [http://bcm.bc.edu/issues/summer_2002/ll_poet.html Boston College Magazine]. * Feature: A misfit poet of heaven at ncronline.org. * [http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2000/may2000p12_57.html Francis Thompson, author of The Hound of Heaven] at AD2000. *Thompson, Francis.in the [[Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition|1911 Encyclopædia Britannica]] * Thompson, Francis Category:1859 births Category:1907 deaths Category:Deaths from tuberculosis Category:English Catholic poets Category:English Roman Catholics Category:Infectious disease deaths in England Category:People from Preston, Lancashire Category:Roman Catholic writers Category:20th-century poets Category:English poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:Christian poets Category:Mystic poets Category:20th-century authors Category:English authors Category:Authors